Have you watched it? There are two versions. The town I became a Mormon in had a tradition...the YW or YM class would get together and watch both versions of it with new, younger converts.

What I learned? "Mahana, you ugly."

(Sorry for any mistypes, I'm not gifted with typing on my phone =P)

I always found it horrifying that they equated a womans worth to that of a cow. Yes, I know that cultures are different but for shit sake. Most of us don't live on an island or subscribe to the notion of paying for you wife's love.

Yeah, well what I learned from the movie is that unless you're beautiful no one gives a (bleep) about who you are as a woman. Your self worth in society is in direct proportion to your looks. The worse you look, the more society will ignore and/or shun you.

But on a positive note...the portrayal of the islanders (I'm assuming they're Mormon because it's a Mormon film) was spot on for Mormons :) VERY realistic attitudes and behaviors. "Shun the one." They were all very unified in their decision not to accept the woman until (I'm guessing) someone paid her past due tithing/dowry in cows???

Now that I think about it, my soon to be ex TBM should give me some cows! At least my self esteem might improve AND I would be a whole lot richer than what he left me with!

Wouldn't the cows go to your father ?

So sad that they use cows to value a person's worth. It is a message to the men in the mormon society about how they have authority over a woman too.

Topics in the film common in mormonism.

Shun is a major topic....and part of mormon culture.
Lack of self worth from a damaging social support group (or lack of one).

I'd heard Johnny Lingo lingo for years but had never watched the show. My (mistaken) impression was that it was actually pro-gender-equality statement using sexist satire.

So, one day as EQP I decided to show it as a fun lesson, thinking it would make a nice progressive lesson about respect...

...um, what...the...heck...?

It actually IS VERY sexist. It's not only insulting, it's revolting. It portrays male chauvanism and proprietism toward women so blatantly that you have to think it's satire...until you realize it ISN'T!

I could tell by the quorum's expressions that they were thinking the same thing. No class discussion that day, we just left it alone as if someone had dropped their pants.

What was really horrifying is that plenty of Mormon women had tee-shirts that said "I am a 10 cow wife" (or however many cows - it's been a while since I saw the movie). I always thought those shirts were more insulting to women than the movie itself.

I saw that when I was in high school. This was way back when. I made the comment that it was disgusting, and equated women to cows. I got scolded for that, but it never changed my opinion!

I refused to ever sit through that again. It just amazed me that women would sit there and watch that and think it was so sweet.

That just goes to show how deprived of self worth so many mormon women are. Until they can come out of that mind set, they will keep promoting that movie or the equivalent of it. So many of the women go along with some pretty sick stuff. They had their backbone removed in childhood. For some reason I escaped that. I think it is because I have something in me that just can't go along with being degraded. It certainly wasn't the way I was raised. The mormons refer to it as a rebellious spirit. Thank God for rebellious spirits is all i can say about that.

Not only is it sexist, it's complete crap. Since when have COWS been significant in traditional Pacific Island culture? Those islands aren't exactly prime grazing territory, ya know. Pigs, yams, fish, taro, coconuts, tapa, shells... lots of other things would make sense as a bride price, but COWS?!? Puh-leez!

Yeah, I know, it's just a story -- and a stupid one, with lousy acting to boot.

Is Johnny Lingo set in Hawaii? It looks to me like some generic "Pacific Island" setting.

Was/is giving a bride price part of Hawaiian/Polynesian marriage negotiations?

There may be cattle in the islands NOW, but they were introduced relatively recently (early 19th century). But just how widespread is cattle-owning in Hawaii/Polynesia? Do ordinary people really own large numbers of cattle?

Sorry, but the whole scenario stinks. Johnny Lingo would make a lot better sense culturally if it were set in Africa, where cattle *are* traditionally used as a bride price among many peoples -- but Africans just aren't as delightsome as Islanders.

Mormon women see Johny Lingo as a Cinderella story. They're so use to being second class citizens and really don't notice that almost every where a women's value is often about her physical value as a sex object and baby maker.

What do you all have against cows????



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2011 04:33AM by digdir.

And, unfortunately, it made it's nasty little way over to this side of The Pond too :(

The cow thing makes sense now, since I read this quote from one of the "Lord's Annointed", Heber C Kimball:

"I think no more of taking [another] wife than I do of buying a cow"

So is Johny Lingo really clever satire, or does it cut a little close to the truth?

Somehow I escaped seeing this jackass movie until I was in my early 30s and in a singles ward and had to veiw it during RS. I thought it was appalling, demeaning and disgusting. I was floored especially at the reaction of one woman in the class.

Honest to God, she was a genuine airhead! She kidded about how she hoped to be an eight-cow wife someday. Later on I heard her kidding about not getting married until the Millenium and how a husband with two wives already would approach her and ask her to be his third wife and she'd say yes! @_@ Ironically, later on she ended up marrying a divorced LDS man in the temple and he had three kids!!!!!!!!!! ROTFLMAO.

I hate that movie so much!

I had to go to early morning seminary.

they decided to show it for seminary.
the projector was broken, only operating in 1/2 speed.
our lazy ass seminary teachers decided to just show it anyway.
If you think that POS story is agonzing in real time, try watching it drawn out to take twice as long.

For months after ward, the tortured local LDS seminary students would spontaneously utter the words.
"Maaaaaaahaaaaanaaaaaaa Yoooooooou UGGGGGGGGleeeeeeee"
in their best half speed pitch voice.
sometimes we laughed, other times we'd curse.

God I hate that movie.
I would make a Huge donation for a remake,
where mahana freaks out after that comment
and hoses down the entire island village with 9 MM
including and especially Mr Lingo.

I would like to see Mahana set a series of sequence charges that result in a high order detenation of the entire island.

As she is exfiling she looks backs for an assement, " Damage: Total." Seriously screw that movie.

I once spent a couple of weeks on Rarotonga and Aitutaki. I didn't see one single cow. Lots of wild chickens, and a goat in every yard. No cows. In fact I don't recall seeing it on any menus either. Pork was as close as it came.

mia Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I once spent a couple of weeks on Rarotonga and
> Aitutaki. I didn't see one single cow. Lots of
> wild chickens, and a goat in every yard. No cows.
> In fact I don't recall seeing it on any menus
> either. Pork was as close as it came.


If they are out of cows they can always use schlongs...

18:25 And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, The king desireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king's enemies. But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.

18:26 And when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to be the king's son in law: and the days were not expired.

18:27 Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/1sam/18.html

Nothing says love like giving a man another guys hood.

The missionaries showed me the movie called Johny Lingo. I disliked it I told him it was racist, they kept steering me towards we're all worth much in God's eyes. I told them I would not let them anyone buy me for even 100 cows. I think they were a bit shocked at my reaction, I found the movie disgusting. My then husband laughed at the movie. Fast foward some years and I noticed all the "I loved Johny Lingo" or "that was one of our favourite movies in seminary", I couldn't believe these people especially women, but then little by little I began to tolerate and eventually like the movie and at some point I also thought it was a funny story. Thank you RfMers because with you I can remember how some things really bothered me at some point, as this Johny Lingo dude did, and I can go back to my original impression.

Johny Lingo is a sexist movie but the LDS church is even more chauvinistic by presenting it still to this day, well I don't know if they do but the missionaries did show it to me in the late 80's. Really, whatever possessed me to join!!! <smacks herself on the forehead>

D =)

Couldn't someone like do a parody, in graphic novel form maybe? Wouldn't that be fun to have?

My mom would love to draw it (she used to draw comic books a lot, amateur only but fun) but would need help from a X-mo cuz she's never-mo and never saw it.

....If you take the TBM perspective, Women ARE cows.

Just another brainfart.

Feeling good about yourself is what makes you beautiful to other people.

Yet it's other people believing you're beautiful that causes you to feel good about yourself.

Chicken and egg much?

It's pretty much saying that an external source of approval is required in order to feel good about yourself...which is pretty much the whole crux of the church's M.O., IMO.

I got in a huge facebook friendship-ending fight with a few TBM's over that movie because I objected to it. My 'friends' insisted that I misunderstood the message of the movie. I assured them that I understood the message entirely and that it wasn't one I agreed with. They thought it was so romantic.

It cracked me up when one of them accused me of ethnocentrism--judging another culture by the standards of my own. It's hilarious because the whole story was written by a white American woman from Nebraska and it's not exactly a documentary.

http://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/premium/Dialogue_V43N01_43.pdf

edited to correct link.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2012 03:46PM by angsty.

I posted my thoughts on facebook and got this comment:

"Or maybe Johhny saw her true beauty, and in a loving happy home she flourished. Roses need water to bloom."

Gag!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2012 07:13PM by athreehourbore.